Our attention these days with regard to security is understandably riveted on the Islamic State, or ISIS, and its hideous decapitations, rapes and live immolations. We must deal with the Islamic State, but it is not the gravest threat we face. The Israelis are right — we should awaken to the fact that the coming of a nuclear Iran holds special dangers and requires particularly urgent attention. There are four driving reasons.

First, the Mideast abounds in clashing religious beliefs, but there is special danger in the Shiite doctrine held by many Iranians, including some of Iran’s national leaders: The return of the hidden Imam will bring the war that ends the world and creates heavenly bliss for believers. As America’s dean of Mideast studies, Bernard Lewis, puts it: During the Cold War, Mutual Assured Destruction was a deterrent; today it is an inducement.

Second, Iran works very closely with North Korea on its nuclear and missile programs. Consequently, it has the ballistic missile capacity to launch weapons of substantial size and intercontinental range against us, or to orbit satellites above us.

So troubling is this capability — in the hands of either Iran or North Korea — that nine years ago, based on the ability of North Korea’s Taepodong missile to carry a nuclear warhead to intercontinental range, the current secretary of defense, Ashton Carter, and a prominent former secretary, William Perry, urged in a 2006 oped a pre-emptive strike against the then-new North Korean long-range missiles on their launch pads. As the two secretaries put it then, “Intervening before mortal threats to U.S. security can develop is surely a prudent policy.” Their view was that our ballistic missile defense capabilities were unproven and should not be relied upon for such an important task. “Diplomacy has failed,” they said, “And we cannot sit by.”

Third, Iran now is either very close to being able to field a nuclear weapon or it should be regarded as already having that capability. As William Graham, who served as President Reagan’s science adviser, administrator of NASA and chairman of the Congressional EMP Commission, as well as many of his distinguished colleagues, such as Henry Cooper, who was director of the Strategic Defense Initiative, and Fritz Ermarth, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, have put it:

“Regardless of intelligence uncertainties and unknowns about Iran’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, we know enough now to make a prudent judgment that Iran should be regarded by national security decision makers as a nuclear missile state capable of posing an existential threat to the United States and its allies.”

Iran’s progress toward having a nuclear weapon that can be orbited or delivered by a long-range missile will not be halted by the concession-rich compromises proposed by the administration’s arms control negotiators in Geneva. North Korea already has this capability. As it appears now, Iran will have it before long. What are the consequences for our vulnerability to these two rogue states?

The new factor that makes one or a few nuclear warhead-carrying missiles launched into orbit much more dangerous than during the Cold War is the possibility of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack against the critical infrastructures that are the foundation of modern societies, especially the national electric grid. Electronics are increasingly vulnerable to EMP — more than a million times more vulnerable (and, yes, also much more capable) than they were at the dawn of the age of modern electronics a half-century ago. Moore’s Law has not been kind to our electronic vulnerabilities.

Consequently, even one nuclear warhead detonated at orbital altitude over the United States would black out the national electric grid and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures for months or years by means of the electromagnetic pulse it would create. The Congressional EMP Commission assessed that a nationwide blackout lasting one year could kill nine of 10 Americans through starvation and societal collapse. Islamic State-like gangs would rule the streets.

Just such a scenario is described in Iranian military documents.

Thus, once Iran has a nuclear weapon, even a primitive one, with a small number of long-range missiles it can use an EMP attack to threaten our survival as a nation and, indeed, the existence of modern society. If a nuclear Iran decided that we were, literally, (and not just as the target of a Persian religious expletive) “the Great Satan,” it might decide that we should meet Satan’s fate.

The advice given President George W. Bush by the two secretaries of defense nine years ago with respect to striking North Korea may turn out to be advice to which President Obama should give heed for one or both of these rogue states.

But just on the chance that a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s strategic capabilities has somehow not found its way onto the chart of options now being discussed these days in the Oval Office, at a minimum the United States needs to protect, now, its electric grid and other critical infrastructures from EMP by passing the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act and the Shield Act. These would at least let us begin to take some key and affordable steps toward hardening the electric grid.

These bills gathering dust in Congress for years without presidential support or interest, mark a new low in the failure of the White House and Congress to fulfill their security responsibilities to the nation. Their continued failure could be the most fateful government dereliction of duty in history.

• R. James Woolsey is a former director of central intelligence and is chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Peter Vincent Pry is executive director of the EMP Task Force, and served in the EMP Commission, the Strategic Posture Commission, the House Armed Services Committee and the CIA.

Imam Suhaib Webb is the keynote speaker. Wikipedia.com reports in part: Suhaid Webb was born William Webb in 1973 in Oklahoma to a Christian family. He lost interest in religion and began engaging in delinquency by joining a local gang and became a local Hip-Hop DJ and producer.

The Islamic organization that includes Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s mosque has ties to the al-Qaeda operative that reportedly inspired Tsarnaev to carry out the Boston Marathon terrorist attack, according to FBI surveillance documents.

Tsarnaev, 19, was indicted Thursday on 30 criminal counts related to the April 15 bombing at the Boston Marathon, which was allegedly carried out by Tsarnaev and his late brother Tamerlan. The bombing left three people dead and numerous others injured, and resulted in a manhunt during which a Boston-area campus police officer was shot and killed.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev reportedly left a note in the boat he hid in during the manhunt claiming that he bombed the Boston Marathon as retribution for U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims,” Tsarnaev wrote.

Prior to the Boston Marathon attack, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who attended the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge,downloaded radical Islamic propaganda from the Internet, including materials authored by Anwar al-Awlaki, the senior al Qaeda operative who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen on September 30, 2011. Tsarnaev also downloaded a summer 2010 edition of the al Qaeda magazine “Inspire,” which included bomb-making instructions and which is thought to have been the work of al-Awlaki.

Al-Awlaki lived in the United States between 1990 and 2002, when he moved to the United Kingdom before eventually relocating to Yemen, where he where worked for al-Qaeda and produced propaganda tapes and other materials urging Muslims to commit terrorist attacks against the United States.

Suhaib Webb, imam of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury, spoke alongside al-Awlaki at a September 9, 2001 fundraiser at the University of California at Irvine, according to FBI surveillance documents. The fundraiser was intended to raise money for the legal defense of H. Rap Brown, an Atlanta-based Islamic radical who shot and killed two Georgia police officers. Webb and al-Awlaki helped raise $100,000 to defend Brown, who was eventually convicted for his crimes.

“Webb and Aulaki may be associated with the Muslim American Society,” according to the surveillance documents, which were prepared to investigate the unconfirmed possibility that al-Awlaki purchased plane tickets for some of the 9/11 hijackers.

An Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center spokesman told The Daily Caller that Webb did not know the full extent of al-Awlaki’s terrorist agenda when Webb was “working with him.”

FBI documents found that Webb and Awlaki were closely associated through the Muslim American Society, which many believe to be an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.

Webb also served as imam of the sister organization of the mosque attended by Boston Marathon bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Before coming to Boston, Webb was the imam of the Islamic Society of Oklahoma City, which was home to Alton Nolen, the man who beheaded an innocent Oklahoma woman in September.

Twelve of Webb’s Islamic Society of Boston members “have either been killed, imprisoned, or declared fugitives due to their involvement in terrorist activity,” according to Americans for Peace and Tolerance.

Additionally, some of the reasons why many American’s are concerned about CAIR’s history and agenda are posted below:

Omar Ahmad, Chairman and founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations, told a Muslim crowd Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth. At the Islamic Association of Palestine’s third annual convention in Chicago in November 1999, Omar Ahmad gave a speech at a youth session praising suicide bombers who kill themselves for Islam. Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam — that is not suicide. They kill themselves for Islam, he said.

Nihad Awad, CAIR Executive Director, saidI am in support of the Hamas movement.

Mustafa Carroll, executive director of the Dallas-Fort Worth CAIR branch, told a crowd at a Muslim rally in Austin, Texas in 2013 If we are practicing Muslims, we are above the law of the land.

CAIR pressured the FBI in June 2013 to stop their Most Wanted advertising campaign which helped the FBI gain information regarding the whereabouts of dangerous terrorists. The list of CAIR officials who have made apologetic comments in the public regarding terrorists is quite extensive.

Bassem Khafagi, CAIR’s former community relations director, was arrested for involvement with the Islamic Assembly of North America, which was linked to al-Qaida. After pleading guilty to visa and bank fraud charges, Khafagi was deported.

Rabih Haddad, a former CAIR fundraiser, was deported for his work with the Global Relief Foundation (which he co-founded), a terror-financing organization.

Americans who are concerned about CAIR’s history and agenda and the people who address their banquets have the First Amendment Right to complain about this event and choose to patronize hoteliers who do not give place to the same. Florida Family Association’s online campaigns have influenced several hoteliers.

Florida Family Association has prepared an email for you to send to Marriott and Springfield Country Club officials. Your email will not only voice concern about this important issue but it will also educate corporate officials with facts regarding CAIR’s history and the people who speak at their events.

To send your email, please click the following link, enter your name and email address then click the “Send Your Message” button. You may also change the subject or message text if you wish.

In seeking to protect Israel from an existential Iranian threat, Prime Minister Netanyahu confronts problematic facts and key uncertainties. It will be interesting to hear how he deals with them in today’s address to Congress and all Americans—who also face an existential threat from Iran, whether they know it or not.

Consider former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s breakdown on what we know and don’t know about important issues when considering the content of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address.

In particular, contemplate Netanyahu’s efforts to assess existential threats to Israel in view of the apparent perceptions and actions of U.S. leadership in dealing with Iran, whose leaders since the 1979 revolution that founded the current regime have sworn to destroy the Little Satan Israel and the Great Satan America. This common threat should unite us with our Israeli friends—but does it do so? If not, why not?

Known Knowns.

Not the least of the Prime Minister’s “known knowns,” to use the first of Rumsfeld’s categories, is that one of the few consistencies of recent U.S. foreign policy is the Obama administration’s failures and obviously delusional perspectives,

From its widely publicized “Reset” with Russia—now fomenting what some call a new Cold War with aggressive actions in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, while our strategic forces atrophy due to lack of the support promised by the Obama administration in exchange for the votes of a few foolish Republican Senators during the 2010 Lame Duck Session, enabling ratification of the New START Treaty, an ill-advised treaty that required U.S. strategic force reductions and legitimized a build-up of modernized Russian strategic forces;

To its vacuous “pivot to Asia” as North Korea increases its ability to threaten us with nuclear armed missiles and satellites (in cooperation with Iran), not to mention China’s persistent progress in becoming a peer economic and military competitor-especially to threaten our naval operations and key space systems as well as the U.S. homeland; and

To its failures in the Middle East where we have withdrawn from three more embassies (most recently in Yemen, the President’s alleged model just a few months ago for his “successful” leading-from-behind policy in the Middle East) and have no apparent strategy to deal with the growing threat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which the President ridiculed as a “Jayvee team” last September as they began to advance and our “partners” dropped their arms (actually U.S. made arms we had supplied) and ran. And ISIS is expanding beyond the Middle East, and has designs on America as well. Meanwhile, U.S. led negotiations with Iran seem to have reduced sanctions that were encouraging Iran to negotiate seriously with little apparent in return—we continue to “kick the can” down the road while the centrifuges spin.

Last week, the President and Secretary of State John Kerry declared we were safer than ever; but the President’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper almost immediately thereafter told the Senate Armed Services Committee that 2014 was “the most lethal year for global terrorism in the 45 years such data has been compiled.”Click here for a blunt but accurate assessment of this sad illustration of why Netanyahu has to believe Obama administration is at a minimum delusional—to be generous.

Furthermore, in some cases the record shows that our leaders have been astonishingly duplicitous. For example, there’s Benghazi—where it is now clear from recently made public email traffic (thanks to the persistent efforts of Judicial Watch) that the events were well known within minutes; nevertheless, the President and his most senior foreign policy advisors, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and his National Security Advisor Susan Rice, misrepresented those facts to America and the rest of the world—for weeks on end, and to this day they have not admitted that they lied.

This will be a very political issue in the 2016 elections—click here for one example from the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). And of course, Rep. Trey Gowdy’s (R-SC) House Select Committee on Benghazi is supposed to be weighing in soon—including testimony from former Secretary of State Clinton. That hearing should be interesting.

Recently, Ms. Rice claimed that Netanyahu’s speech today is “destructive of the fabric” of our long time close ties with Israel. Maybe such “torn fabric” is with President Obama if it is possible to make that relationship less amicable—but with congress and the American people? I don’t think so. And I think Bibi—who well understands the American people from his years living with us knows better.

Imagine what he must think as he contemplates these facts among the “known” threats with which Israel must contend—and which American should also recognize and counter effectively. And why he wants to address the U.S. Congress and American people to seek to reassure the historic ties between the United States and Israel in confronting common enemies—particularly an Iran intent on gaining nuclear armed missiles that represent a threat to both our nations.

Known Unknowns.

Among the known unknowns are factors that affect the all-important issue of when Iran can gain deliverable nuclear weapons.

Uncertainties in estimating with confidence that timeline provoke major controversy because of a fundamental difference of perspectives—and inconvenient facts that limit confidence in gaining verifiably agreed approaches to processing nuclear materials.

Netanyahu wants assurance that Iran will never gain a capability that indeed is as existential threat to Israel posed by even one—or at most a few—Iranian nuclear weapons.

The administration’s apparent interest is to delay the time for Iran gets that capability—and to negotiate with Iran and others among the P5 +1 (the five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) about “how much delay is enough.” For an up-to-date summary of ongoing efforts, see Michael Gordon’s article in the March 1, 2015 New York Times.

Notwithstanding optimistic prognostications, Effective verification is very problematic, especially considering a major circumvention “loophole” as discussed in depth by Sellin and Vallely in their February 28, 2015 Family Security Matters article “US – Iran nuclear deal may be dead on arrival and should be.”

In particular, the well-known and long-standing alliance between Iran and North Korea in developing and testing nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to deliver them is an obvious pathway for Iran to cheat on whatever verification arrangements are negotiated with Iran alone.

Netanyahu has previously discussed his concerns about negotiating limits on Iran’s nuclear materials enrichment efforts rather than to end them. And I have written—e.g., in our June 14, 2013 message and in earlier linked messages—about his views of a pending “red line” which he believes must not be crossed, views also shared in his September 27, 2012 address to the United Nations. It will be instructive to learn if he believes we are currently crossing that “red line.”

The perspective of many of the U.S. “elite” seems consistent with a policy of containment, as was underwritten by our deterrent policies during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. But Iran is not the Soviet Union—and there is justified concern that the Mullahs cannot be deterred, when it comes to destroying the Little Satan and the Great Satan.

At least Bibi is cognizant of this reality—perhaps our leaders are not, or do not take it seriously. And dealing with the known unknowns adds major concerns about our negotiation objectives and approach.

We currently are focused on raising South Carolinians’ awareness of EMP threats to the electric grid, and what they can do to counter them—especially as such threats are posed by rogue states like North Korea and Iran, and Islamic Terrorists like ISIS. We are working the problem in South Carolina from the bottom-up among local and state authorities—because Washington seems unable even to identify the obvious problems, let alone deal with them.

On March 14, 2015, we are joining with the Center for Security Policy and Breitbart News to sponsor the all-day South Carolina National Security Action Summit to discuss these very clear and present dangers we face—especially the vulnerability of our electric grid, the global jihad, immigration issues and the hollowing out of our military capabilities. As should be clear from my above discussion, these are linked to threats that also confront Israel.

A number of experts will be joining to discuss solutions to these important problems, if we simply can persuade the powers that be to execute them! So far, Senator Ted Cruz, former Senator Rick Santorum, Ambassador John Bolton, Governor Bobby Jindal, Phyllis Schlafly, Frank Gaffney, Dr. Peter Pry and a number of others have confirmed their participation. Please make your plans to join us in Columbia at the Brookland Baptist Banquet and Conference Center—especially if you live in South Carolina or nearby. Please click here to learn more and to reserve your tickets!

Surprise, surprise, Harakat Hazm (HH) – one of the US government’s favorite factions challenging the Asad regime in Syria – has completely collapsed after being routed by al-Nusra at one of their last remaining bases in Atarib. After the group was routed and announced its dissolution, al-Nusra began taking inventory of the new toys they seized such as TOW anti-tank missiles, night-vision optics and anti-air missiles – all courtesy of the Obama administration. In the grand scheme of things it didn’t really matter since the group had been giving a lot of what they were receiving from the US to al-Nusra over the last 8 months. HH has been touted as being one of the last real “moderate” entities in the country. The problem with that is this statement is inaccurate, and only goes to show just how dangerously naive the Obama administration’s views are in this fight.

We first wrote about HH’s alliance over the past year with some less than “moderate” groups back in our 20 JUL 14 piece titled “This is Why We Need to Avoid Giving Weapons to Anti-Asad Rebels.” The not-so-convenient truth is that HH had been actively conducting joint-operations with al-Nusra and the Syrian Revolutionaries Front (SRF) and Islamic Army. HH, SRF and the Islamic Army were all established to put a “moderate” face on the Syrian rebels – although in actuality no such group exists. Over the past year HH had worked closely with SRF, whose leader, Jamal Marouf, has admitted to sharing weapons with al-Nusra and stated that “fighting al-Qaida (AQ) is not our problem.” Mutual ally and Islamic Front leader Zahran Aloush is a known Salafist who is all about waving the AQ flag on the battlefield. No, that man is not a “moderate,” and neither are any of the other groups we mentioned above. in fact, Aloush had participated in a joint-operation with al-Nusra in the attack on Adra in DEC 2013, which led to over 40 civilians being massacred. As for the Islamic Front, well, they were a subordinate organization under the al-Nusra banner but switched over to ISIS when the feud between the two jihadist organizations kicked into high-gear.

The following excerpt from the LA Times article titled “Syria Rebels, Once Hopeful of U.S. Weapons, Lament Lack of Firepower” is quite revealing:

“Inside Syria we became labeled as secularists and feared Nusra Front was going to battle us,” Zeidan said, referring to an Al Qaeda-linked rebel group that has been designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. Then he smiled and added, “But Nusra doesn’t fight us, we actually fight alongside them. We like Nusra.”

By now some of our readers are probably thinking, “you can’t judge HH on what others do” – and you would be justified in those thoughts. Both the Obama administration and Senators John McCain and Lyndsey Graham have praised HH as being a “model for the type of group the US should be supporting.” Specifically, they’ve been praising HH as being a “secular” organization. However, the truth behind the group’s formation and history is very different than what has been sold to the msm and the American people. HH’s formation actually predates the Islamic Front and involves the establishment of the Harakat Zaman Muhammad (of which it was a part of) under the Quranic verse “And fight against disbelievers collectively. [9:36]” The effort involved the recreation of the al-Farouq Brigades (you know, the guys who force non-Muslims to pay the “jizya” or “tax” in the territories they seize) in a new form under new leadership for the purpose of uniting all Islamist groups in Syria at a later stage.

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB – the Grandfather of the modern Sunni terrorist btw) put its full support behind the group, but the lack of a prominent face was an obstacle. The two individual who would fill this role are Aloush and Ahrar al-Sham Movement leader Hasan Aboud aka “Abu Abdullah al-Hamwi.” The idea at the time was for the movement to be “the lead” in the fight against the Asad regime and the Islamic State (IS) in Northern Syria. The Harakat Zaman Muhammad organization would later become what we know today as “HH” with Bilal Atar and Abdullah Awda as the “faces” of the organization to the west. The decision to change the name to “Harakat Hazm” was made by the MB leadership to give the entity a “secular” appearance so as to look more appealing to the west. In other words, the group wasn’t “secular” at all, and was really just the armed-wing of the MB that once again fooled a clueless Obama administration. Aside from the US, HH also received substantial assistance from Turkey and Qatar – who were likely the ones American weaponry were being funneled through.

In addition to forcing non-Muslims to pay the jizya (which is pretty much protection money), HH’s friends the al-Farouq Brigades is also the organization that engages in eating the hearts of their enemies (doesn’t every moderate?):

It was sometime at the end of last summer that HH and al-Nusra had a falling out, which of course resulted in the group’s eventual disbandment. In SEP 14 HH began to show signs of moving towards the IS sphere of influence when they condemned US military airstrikes targeting IS positions in Northern Syria. By then, the group had started to experience mass defections to al-Nusra and IS. Here’s the official statement (from our friends at the Counter Jihad Report):

The Obama administration’s support provided to HH is a damning indictment of the lack of competence in the foreign policy and national security-arenas endemic from top to bottom. Not one person in the administration fully understands the nature of the threat nor do the individuals considered “Middle East subject matter experts” appear to know the difference between a jihadist and an actual moderate. Ironically, the Asad regime is the most moderate faction in Syria. Most people don’t realize that Asad married a Sunni woman and that Sunnis and Christians are represented throughout the government. In fact, the reason Asad remains in power is due to the Sunnis – the real moderates – who remained loyal to the regime. The same can also be said for the US government’s failure to provide adequate support to other moderates such as Jordan, Egypt, Libyan GEN Khalifa Haftar and the Kurdish factions.

But we’re not advocating an alliance with Asad. Far from it. We’re saying that the current situation was created by an Obama administration that was clearly in over its head when it supported the “Arab Spring,” the Islamists/jihadists driving the movement and the “moderates” that would later rise in places like Libya, Egypt and Syria. Had the Obama administration not supported the Arab Spring or pulled out of Iraq when it did all this would have likely never materialized. Unfortunately, the administration’s current rudderless IS strategy has only led to the violence in the region escalating to the point where we’re now faced with an IS that is spreading into Gaza, North Africa and the AF/PAK region like a cancer metastasizing in a weakened body. Now we have no choice but to put boots on the ground with a lax ROE and the full support to do what’s necessary to defeat this enemy – and the longer we put it off, the worst its going to get for all involved. Especially for our military. The world is burning, and President Obama is doing his best impersonation of Nero…

Yesterday, terrorists threatened to “behead” Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie if she did not help “introduce sharia law in Australia.”

To her credit, Lambie had recently called for the introduction of the death penalty for terrorists and had been quoted as saying: “If you don’t like our Australian law… then pack your bags and… leave. We will never bow down to sharia law.”

The police do not yet know whether this death threat was sent by Jihadists or by opponents of a planned mosque.

Australia, Down Under? Is there no continent free of lone wolves, wolf packs, citizen-jihadists who turn on their own countrymen or who travel to join ISIS?

Sadly, the answer is no. In fact, yesterday the Australian government barred its citizens from traveling to Mosul to combat “what the government calls growing radicalization among young Australian Muslims, some of whom have fought overseas with militant groups.”

Australia is part of the core group coalition against ISIS, which consists of the United States, Britain, France, Canada, Turkey, Italy, Poland, and Denmark.

Jihad is not new to Australia. According to Mark Durie, writing in Middle East Forum, almost one hundred years ago, in 1915, two Muslim men joined forces to shoot and kill four people and wound several others before being killed by police. They were answering the “call to jihad issued by the Ottoman Caliphate (on 11 November 1914).”

Durie defines three different forms of jihad: “individual jihad,” “jihad by bands,” and “jihad by campaigns,” which is warfare using armies directed by the Caliph. “This is the mode the self-declared caliphate known as the Islamic State is following today.”

These jihadists are not crazy or stupid or impoverished or justifiably angry because they have been persecuted. This is, pure and simple, “a manifestation of Islamic theology.” Westerners, especially our leaders and elites, do not want to believe this. As I have pointed out elsewhere, contrary to Western myth, many Islamic terrorists come from stable homes and have advanced educations; their leaders are often men of enormous wealth.

In December of 2014, “Sheikh” Man Haron Monis took 18 people hostage at the Lindt Chocolate Café in Sydney; he also hung an ISIS flag in the window. Two hostages and the gunman were killed. Like the 1915 Australian jihadists, Monis had experienced difficulties with the law. One of the 1915 jihadists, Mullah Abdullah, had been convicted of slaughtering sheep on an unlicensed premise; in 2014, Monis was facing criminal charges as an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife.

When someone is taught that they are “superior” and should dominate others and yet finds himself treated just like everyone else—or treated punitively due to what constitutes criminal behavior in the West but not in the Muslim world—one’s honor has been assaulted and revenge is called for. Such behavior—attacking Western officers or civilians– means that “sudden” or “instant” jihadists have internalized shame and honor codes and believe that Islam should reign supreme over every other religion and legal system.

Westerners have a very hard time believing this as well.

Jihad has been building for years in Australia. In 1998, a Sydney police station was shot atby four Arabs. In 2004, a Lebanese-Australian told a reporter that he “wanted to undertake a terror attack in Sydney in the name of Islam.”

According to Australian terrorism researcher Andrew Zammitt, in 2003, thirteen Melbourne men and nine Sydney men were arrested and charged with forming two different cells to prepare attacks. Eighteen were convicted. These arrests suggested that Australians had become “newly radicalized” post 9/11.

In 2005, hundreds of Australian women at the beach were harassed by angry, offended Muslims. Two hundred such men thereafter smashed hundreds of cars and windows, bashed several people and threatened women with rape.

In the summer of 2014, when Israel was self-defensively trying to eradicate the diabolical terror tunnels in Gaza, a convoy of cars drove through Sydney, brandishing the black flag of ISIS. Some chanted: “Jew and Christian will not stand. You can never stop Islam.”

In the fall of 2014, in Melbourne, Abdul Numan Haider was going to be questioned for “inflammatory” social media postings. He was on the radar. However, when the police came to talk to him—only to talk to him, not to arrest him—Haider stabbed one officer in the abdomen, neck, and head; he stabbed a second officer in the forearm. Haider was shot and killed.

Haider was considered to be a “gentle, loving, quiet” person, a “skinny small boy” who was a devout Muslim.

A worshipper at Haider’s mosque suggested that the 18 year-old was “upset about the recent cancellation of his passport and the police attention on him, [and] frustrated at what was happening in Iraq and Syria.”

Like the jihadists in 1915 and 2014, Haider did not view Australian law as more important than Sharia law and the “call to Jihad,” and when he got in trouble with the law (he was legally stopped from leaving Australia), and when he was merely questioned, he immediately enacted his own, lone Jihad.

I called a friend in Australia who does not want to be named. He is a physician and has many Arab patients. He shared the following anecdotes.

“I have had many Arab patients. I tell them I am German. Many praised me because Hitler was German and did ‘such a great job with the Jews.’ At a clinic, a Muslim reception clerk often greeted me with Heil Hitler, arm extended, and a smile. He thought I was an Aryan German. A young man, whom Australian Jews had helped, confided in me, saying that ‘Islam is going to take over the world as the fastest growing religion. Even in Australia.’ One of my Australian patients complained that he was harassed and bullied on the street by Arabs, shouting, ‘we are going to take over your f**king country.’ Someone who had been a member of Hezbollah, wanted me to write a letter for him to the Prime Minister so he would not be deported. When I declined, he grabbed me by the neck and threatened me.”

On Tuesday, March 3, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address a joint session of the United States Congress at the invitation of the Speaker of the House John Boehner. This will take place despite strong opposition from the White House, whose approval for this event was not sought.

Netanyahu will address the danger that an Iran with nuclear weapons would represent not only for Israel, but also for the United States and the entire world. More pointedly he will seek to persuade Congress not to support a deal that the Obama administration appears to be working out with Iran that will guarantee that Iran will soon have such weapons. Allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons would be catastrophic, Netanyahu will say.

His concerns are well founded. Iran’s leaders hate Israel for merely existing, and they have a history of threatening to annihilate the Jewish state. Nuclear weapons would give them a means to do so in one strike. One of Iran’s former presidents, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a man considered a moderate by Iranian standards, said that “it is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.”

It will be interesting to hear what Netanyahu has to say about “such an eventuality.” It is likely to be a momentous speech, but due to the time allotted, he will have to leave out much of what needs to be explained — chiefly, why these theocratic Iranian leaders hate Israel so much that they would love to incinerate it out of existence.

The short explanation: It has to do with an ancient hatred so thick you would need a chainsaw to cut through it.

Since it is unlikely the Israeli prime minister will address this phenomenon of hatred, I have written a speech for him that says what needs to be said about this very important subject. Perhaps he will see fit to insert this into his speech. The theme of this is Iran’s hatred for Jews and how it got that way:

“Distinguished members of Congress, I want to emphasize that this hatred did not come about as a result of creation of the State of Israel in 1948, nor from any of the conflicts, major and minor, between Israelis and Arabs that have occurred since then. The cause of the hatred goes back 1,400 years to the founder of Islam. Muslims hate Jews because Muhammad hated Jews. Muhammad hated Jews because they refused to accept his claim that he was their prophet.

This hatred is the story of Muhammad and his claim that God talked to him through an angel and dictated the contents of the Koran to him. It is the history of the rejection Muhammad first got from his compatriots in Mecca who thought he was devil possessed. Muhammad proclaimed to them that he was of the line of the Jewish prophets, and was commissioned by God to restore true faith in the one God of Abraham. They should listen to him and obey him if they wanted to achieve paradise and avoid hellfire. The Meccans put up with him for ten years before deciding they had to kill him to preserve their way of life. He fled to Yathrib, now called Medina, two hundred miles north of Mecca.

This is where the Jewish part of the story begins. Half of the population of the sprawling valley was Jewish, divided among three major tribes. The other half of the population consisted of Arabs who practiced the same polytheism as the Meccans. Muhammad built a mosque in the center of the valley and turned it into his al-qaeda, his base of operations for a war he declared against the Meccans. This consisted first of attacks on their caravans and ended in pitched battles. Within 18 months, he began to purge the Jewish population from Yathrib.

When Muhammad first arrived in their valley, the Jews listened politely to him, but when they analyzed the prophet verses he had come up with in Mecca, they realized they were not based on the Torah. They were versions of the derivative Jewish legends about the prophets, but even then there were significant variations, yet Muhammad claimed his versions were the correct ones because he got everything from God. When he insisted they accept him as their prophet, the Jews laughed in his face and began mocking him.

While in Mecca, Muhammad had developed curse prayers — hate prayers — that he and his followers recited against the Meccans. He now turned his curses on the Jews. He branded them as apes and pigs and stirred up hatred against them in diatribes from the pulpit at his mosque. “They are mischief makers. They are fools. The Jews deny the truth,” he screamed on one occasion. (Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, p. 248)

He composed numerous Koran verses that seethed with the hatred he felt for the Jews for rejecting him. In verse after verse he warned them that hellfire awaited them for not believing in him. “Sufficient for the Jew is the Flaming Fire!” he said in Koran 4:55. In another he said, “There is a grievous punishment awaiting them. Satan tells them not to believe so they will end up in Hell.” (Koran 59:14)

He made life for them a hell on earth. His hatred turned deadly after a battle near the caravan stop of Badr in which his small band of 300 men defeated a Meccan army three times larger. This battle took place about 18 months after his flight from Mecca. When he returned victorious to Yathrib, he began assassinating Jewish poets who had mocked him in their poems. Within a month of his victory over the Meccans, he forced one of the Jewish tribes to leave and confiscated all of their property. He wanted to behead all of them, but was dissuaded by one of their pagan allies.

From the battle of Badr on, the Muhammad story is largely the account of atrocities he committed, particularly against the Jews. A year after purging Yathrib of the first Jewish tribe, he forced another to leave under penalty of death if they did not, and he distributed their fortresses, date plantations, and farms to the elite of his Meccan followers. This had been Jewish land for nearly a thousand years. The remaining Jewish tribe, the Qurayzas, suffered a worse fate after they took sides against him during a Meccan assault that ended in failure because of a defensive ditch Muhammad dug around Yathrib. He beheaded as many as 900 men and boys. His attacks against the Jews continued with the conquest of Khaybar, a wealthy Jewish oasis known as the date farm of Western Arabia, and other ancient Jewish centers in western Arabia.

On his deathbed he ordered his followers not to allow any religion but his to exist on the Arabian Peninsula — or anywhere else for that matter.

Hatred is as transmissible as electricity. Because Muslims believe Muhammad’s Koran came from God and that everything he did was in accordance with the will of God, the Muslims of his day absorbed his hatreds. His hatred of the Jews became their hatred of the Jews. This hatred has been passed down generation after generation, and today we see it with the Iranians. It is because of the hatred that has been transmitted through 14 centuries that the Iranians seek to destroy Israel.”

Perhaps Netanyahu can be persuaded to include these remarks in his speech. It is the story behind the story, and it is the story that people need to hear.

In light of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Congress this week and the continuation of Iranian nuclear talks, it is important to understand Iran’s history of Islamist threats against both Israel and the United States. For Part I of this analysis, click here.

Briefly, Shiite doctrine on jihad evolved to be indistinguishable from its Sunni counterpart by the late 13th century, i.e., open-ended warfare against non-Muslims. Iran’s theocratic Shiite Safavid and Qajar dynasties, its primary rulers from 1501-1925 (i.e., barring a period of Sunni Afghan invasion, internecine turmoil, and the heterodox reign of Nadir Shah, covering ~ 70 years during the 18th century), fully implemented this warfare doctrine, including the notion that jihad was more laudable in the absence of the 12th imam.

Al-Amili (d. 1622), a distinguished jurist under Shah Abbas I, encapsulated these views in his authoritative manual of Islamic Law. He wrote, “Jihad against followers of other religions, such as Jews, is required unless they convert to Islam, or pay the poll-tax (per Koran 9:29)”

Predatory jihad campaigns (under the longest reigning Safavid Shah Tahmasp, r. 1524-1576) waged against Christian Georgia—punctuated by massacre, pillage, enslavement, and deportation—were consistent with this doctrine. The killing of non-combatants during jihad campaigns was fully sanctioned according to the prominent 14th, and 18th (to early 19th) century Shiite jurists, respectively, Allameh Helli [Hilli](d. 1325), and Sayyid Ali Tabatabai (d. 1816). Allameh Helli maintained there was a consensus among Shiite legalists that if defeating the enemy required attacking and killing children, women, and the elderly, then these actions were to be undertaken. Ali Tabatabai invoked Muhammad’s campaigns against the Medinan Jewish tribe Banu Nadir and his siege of Taif to justify such actions

This shared, mainstream Sunni and Shiite doctrine on jihad is the validating context in which Iran’s 1979 Constitutional provision on its self-proclaimed “Ideological Army” must be evaluated. Animated by the ideology of jihad, The Islamic Republic’s aggressive, conquering Weltanschauung, is self-evident.

In the formation and equipping of the country’s defense forces, due attention must be paid to faith and ideology as the basic criteria. Accordingly, the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are to be organized in conformity with this goal, and they will be responsible not only for guarding and preserving the frontiers of the country, but also for fulfilling the ideological mission of jihad in God’s way; that is, extending the sovereignty of Allah’s law throughout the world (this is in accordance with the Koranic verse “Prepare against them whatever force you are able to muster, and strings of horses, striking fear into the enemy of Allah and your enemy, and others besides them” [8:60]).

The Islamic Republic of Iran melds Islam’s totalitarian religious zealotry—a living embodiment of aggressive jihadism and Sharia supremacism—to Shi’ism’s najis-inspired Jew-hatred. Having forcibly returned its indigenous vestigial remnant Jewish population (i.e., the small minority of those 120,000 post-World War II Iranian Jews who have not fled!) to a state of obsequious dhimmitude, this toxic amalgam of belligerent, if “sacralized” Islamic ideologies animates Iran’s obsession to destroy the autonomous Jewish State of Israel, the initial goal of its larger hegemonic aspirations. Moreover, the Islamic Republic’s “pious” adherence to a jihad martyrdom mentality renders deterrence of its expressed nuclear annihilationist designs on Israel, a dubious proposition. Regardless, Iran’s jihadist proxies, in particular, Lebanese Hezbollah, with itsdemonstrated jihad martyrdom pedigree, and now possessing an estimated 100,000 rockets, could operate with impunity under an Iranian nuclear umbrella.

Deciding to cancel a planned visit to her Iranian homeland, Jewish refugee Farideh Goldin, born (1953) and raised in the Shiraz, Iran Jewish ghetto, made these plaintive observations, in a 2006 essay:

Visiting Iran for the last time in the summer of 1976, I vowed never to return. But during the past few years, the temptation slowly crept into me, like a long-abandoned addiction…My husband has never visited the country of my birth. We had planned to spend a year in Iran after he finished his medical internship…[A] medical conference in Mashad [Iran] seemed to be my best chance to introduce my husband to my first homeland. I made the decision to go with much trepidation, however. I am a woman; I am Jewish; I am a writer; each category subjected me to discrimination and suspicion…That was October 21, 2005. Barely a week later, Iran was in the headlines. Its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called for the destruction of the state of Israel: every man, woman and child; artist, farmer scientist, grocer; the young girl whose parents walked from Yemen; my friend who was carried out of Syria in her father’s arms, screaming from hunger; the young man from Ethiopia who left everything behind; …—and yes, my mother, father and sister too. What are they to this fanatic leader but a small price to pay on the road to heavenly redemption? …How could I go back to Iran? I mourn for my parents’ loss of dignity, for all the Iranian Jewish refugees still numb with the political earthquake that tumbled their lives. The hands of evil are strong and long, seeking them still—not with daggers and clubs, as when my parents and grandparents lived in the dark ghettos of Iran, when Jew-haters, encouraged by fanatical mullahs, rampaged through their meager belongings—but now with missiles and atomic bombs.

All the potentially catastrophic dynamics Goldin characterized with such eloquence—and despair—persist, and now, after the delusive and destabilizing “P5 + 1” negotiations process approaches finality, have advanced to a truly imminent stage.

The question arises as to why more than 12-years after the August 14, 2002 revelations about Iran’s Natanz and Arak nuclear installations—6-years under the Bush II Administration, and another 6-years (and counting) during the Obama Administration—sound, practical U.S. geostrategic arguments, and actions, such as those advocated by Professor Matthew Kroenig, have been dismissed. My book Iran’s Final Solution For Israel examines at some length, the origins of this tragic, yet entirely avoidable failure of imagination, and will, rooted in intellectual sloth, and cowardice.

The case for limited, targeted military strikes on Iran’s four known nuclear facilities has been made with cogent clarity by Professor Kroenig, Georgetown University International Relations Professor, and expert on Iran’s nuclear program. Kroenig’s dispassionate May, 2014, study, A Time to Attack, elucidates the profoundly destabilizing threat posed by an Iran armed with nuclear weapons:

From Iran, a revisionist and risk-acceptant state, we can expect…reckless behavior. Iran will almost certainly be willing to risk nuclear war in future geopolitical conflicts, and this will mean that it will be able on occasion to engage in successful nuclear coercion. It also means that, in playing these games of brinkmanship, it will increase the risk of a nuclear exchange.

Kroenig then outlines the tactical obstacles military strikes on Iran’s four established nuclear facilities would confront, from the relative ease of attacking the surface Isfahan and Arak sites, to the difficulty of targeting the underground Natanz and Qom complexes.

…Isfahan and Arak are above ground and therefore are easy military targets. We [the U.S.] could easily destroy these facilities using air- or sea-launched cruise missiles, launched from U.S. B-52 bombers operating outside Iranian airspace or U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf.

Natanz is buried under seventy feet of earth and several meters of reinforced concrete, and Qom is built into the aide of a mountain and is therefore protected by 295 feet of rock. To destroy these sites we would need to use the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP. The MOP weighs 30,000 pounds and according to open source reporting, is capable of penetrating up to 200 feet before exploding. Some simple arithmetic (200 feet is greater than 70+ feet) suggests that Natanz doesn’t stand a chance. It is unlikely that the MOP could penetrate into the enrichment chamber of Qom in a single shot (295 feet is greater than 200 feet), but we could simply put subsequent bombs in the crater left from a previous bomb and thus eventually tunnel our way in. Putting multiple bombs in the same hole requires a fair bit of accuracy in our targeting, but we can do it. In addition to destroying their entrances, exits, ventilation heating and cooling systems, and their power lines and sources. The MOP can only be carried on the U.S. B-2 stealth bomber. Since it can be refueled in midair, the B-2 can be sent on a roundtrip mission from U.S. bases in Missouri and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to its targets in Iran and back home again without stopping. The B-2 could also be escorted by stealthy U.S. F-22 fighters, or F-16s, to protect it against fighter aircraft.

This relatively limited, and very brief campaign consisting of “a barrage of cruise missiles and bombing sorties,” Kroenig observes, plausibly conducted in one night, would almost certainly succeed in its intended mission and destroy Iran’s key nuclear facilities.

Citing four historical precedents where pre-emptive bombing of nuclear facilities achievedthe goal of non-proliferation, decisively—“Nazi Germany during World War II, Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq several times in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, and Syria in 2007”—Kroenig concludes by enumerating the multiple benefits which would accrue from similarly destroying Iran’s known nuclear installations:

There is absolutely no doubt that a strike on Iran’s nuclear facility would significantly set back Iran’s nuclear progress and create a real possibility that Iran would remain non-nuclear for the foreseeable future. Moreover…[a] strike…would stem the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East and bolster the nonproliferation regime around the world. Furthermore, a U.S. strike would also strengthen American credibility. We declared many times that we were prepared to use force if necessary to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons. A strike would demonstrate that we mean what we say and say what we mean and that other countries, friends and foes alike, would be foolish to ignore America’s foreign policy pronouncements.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Deputy Commander Brigadier-General Hossein Salami made the following comments at a conference held in Tehran, which aired on Al-Alam TV on March 11, 2014:

Despite the geographical distance, we are attached to the hearts of the Palestinians. How is it that our slogans and goals are identical to the slogans and causes of the Palestinians? Why do we strive to become martyrs and risk our lives for the Palestinian cause? The answer is that the religion of Islam has designated this for us – this goal, this motivation, this belief, this energy – so that we, here, can muster all our energies in order to annihilate the Zionist entity, more than 1,400 kilometers away. We are ready for that moment in the future.

The “Trusting Khomeini-Khamenei-Rohani” brain trust shaping current Obama Administration Iran policy maintains the good general Salami doesn’t mean any of this, and it is somehow mere “cultural bluster.” Conservative “Trusting Montazeri/Green Movement,” self-styled “Iran shenasans” (“Iran experts”) would argue the good general is simply “distorting” Shiite Islam and we must be patient, support the (Soylent) Green Movement of Iranian Jeffersonian Democrats, and at some unstated future time point, “regime replacement” will solve the Iranian nuclear weapons, and all other such problems engendered by the “distortion of Shiite Islam.” Accordingly, we must ignore the hard data that show 83% support for the Sharia in Iran, or the 63% of Iranians who insisted that Iran should continue to develop its nuclear program, even at the height of the period of strictest international economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Till now, those are your Iran policy options from the ones who control such discourse—and current or planned actions—across the political and ideological spectrum. As a potential alternative to this dangerously misguided policy morass, I queried Professor Kroenig (in early November, 2014) about the possibility of urgent Israeli airstrikes. Kroenig’s A Time to Attack argues persuasively about the limitations of such an Israeli campaign, Israel lacking any known capability, for example, to penetrate the deeply embedded fortifications of Iran’s Qom/Fordow uranium enrichment facility. However, given what is truly needed two-years from now, hope against hope—a complete U.S. political and policymaking class “regime change”—I offer Professor Kroenig’s temporizing solution until the U.S. regains its geostrategic and moral bearings:

As a last resort, an Israeli strike– and the year or two of breathing space, at minimum, it would buy– would be preferable to acquiescing to a nuclear Iran.

Finally, the American public, regardless of the attitudes of current political leadership and policymaking elites, appears fully cognizant of Iran’s intentions, and the unacceptable security threat posed by an Islamic Republic armed with nuclear weapons. Polling data from a U.S. national sample of 1800 Americans completed Sunday, November 23, 2014,indicated the following:

85% of Americans do not believe the Iranians’ assertions that their nuclear program is peaceful

81% of Americans do not believe the current government in Iran can be trusted to keep agreements

Hope springs eternal such gimlet-eyed Americans will elect equally astute political leaders also endowed with the courage necessary to authorize targeted military strikes which complete a task Israel will have initiated by 2015: destroying, or severely damaging the Islamic Republic of Iran’s current nuclear development facilities, forestalling, and perhaps even preventing long term, a nuclear weapons-armed Iran.

Illustrative materials, particularly key background doctrinal and historical quotes were reproduced from the author’s Iran’s Final Solution For Israel, re-published with an updated preface November 26, 2014.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015, a week before Netanyahu’s scheduled appearance– which is clearly unwelcome by the Obama Administration– Susan Rice, the Administration’s national security adviser, told PBS’s Charlie Rose, bluntly:

I think it’s [Netanyahu’s address] destructive of the fabric of the [U.S.-Israel] relationship.

Subsequently, Israel National News (on March 1, 2015) repeated unconfirmed allegations from a Kuwaiti newspaper that President Obama personally thwarted a planned Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2014, threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they reached their Iranian targets. By Sunday evening (3/1/15), in a statement issued toThe Washington Times, a senior Obama Administration official claimed the Kuwaiti report was “totally false.”

Pair this frank denial of the Kuwaiti story with Ms. Rice’s icy, hostile remark, and it reflects an Obama administration thoroughly, even vindictively dismissive of the Israeli Prime Minister’s grave, rational apprehensions. Mr. Netanyahu appropriately rejects the current negotiations process which abets, and de facto legitimizes, Iran’s nuclear aspirations, under the guise of regulated uranium enrichment for promised non-military uses, while ignoring the Islamic Republic’s long range ballistic missile development, and nuclear weaponization programs. Speaking at Bar Ilan University, on February 9, 2015, Netanyahu offered a plaintive rationale for his Congressional address in early March, highlighting the shared existential threat to Israel, and the U.S:

The true question is whether Iran will have nuclear bombs to implement its intention to destroy the State of Israel. That is something we will not allow. This is not a political issue either in Israel or the U.S. This is an existential issue.

Referencing the disturbing findings of a confidential IAEA report exposed by the New York Times on February 20, 2015 (discussed below), Netanyahu later expressed his “astonishment” that the P5 +1 negotiations had not been abandoned altogether:

Not only are they continuing, there is an increased effort to reach a nuclear agreement in the coming days and weeks. Therefore, the coming month is critical for the nuclear talks between Iran and the major powers because a framework agreement is liable to be signed that will allow Iran to develop the nuclear capabilities that threaten our existence.

The Israeli Prime Minister re-affirmed his view of the unacceptable dangers such an agreement posed to Israel, and the international community overall. He also criticized the moral depravity of negotiations with an Iranian regime that continued to actively support global jihad terrorism.

[T]herefore, I will go to the US next week in order to explain to the American Congress, which could influence the fate of the agreement, why this agreement is dangerous for Israel, the region and the entire world. [Iran] continues its murderous terror activities around the region and the world, does not, unfortunately, bother the international community, which is continuing to talk with Iran about a nuclear accord that will allow it to build an industrial capacity to develop nuclear arms.

The sobriety of Prime Minster Netanyahu’s tocsin of looming calamity is completely validated by the following recent developments, which highlight Iran’s aggressive pursuit of nuclear and conventional military capabilities (directed against both Israel, and the U.S.), all inspired by its openly avowed, bellicose Islamic ideology:

An independent report of 102 pp. issued on 11/20/2014, reviewing over a decade of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) analyses (and other investigative findings), concluded (despite repeated, disingenuous countervailing protests) that the Iranian regime continued to engage in “systematic,” “vigorous” combined military, and dual military-civilian efforts “such as enrichment, weaponization, warhead, and delivery system at some stage,” whose ultimate goal was procuring nuclear weapons capability. There were “no serious indications that Tehran has stopped or abandoned this project or intends to do so.” Iran, on the contrary, “has resorted to further secrecy and concealment to keep its program intact and unhindered.” Additional discoveries and data all underscored how “a military program and military related activities” remain “at the heart of the Iranian nuclear program.”

A subsequent updated report by the IAEA itself, leaked to the New York Times and disclosed on February 20, 2015, stated that the agency “remains concerned about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military-related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.” Adding Iran had not provided explanations for the IAEA’s queries about all Iranian nuclear-related work, the IAEA report claimed the agency was “not in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.”

An Israeli TV Channel 2 Wednesday, January 21, 2015 report showed images taken by the Eros B commercial Earth observation satellite revealing that “Iran has built a 27-meter-long missile, capable of delivering a warhead far beyond Europe, and placed it on a launch pad at a site close to Tehran.”

Former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz published (on January 22, 2015) a conservative estimate that Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium—which has burgeoned since 2009—could be readily further enriched to provide 6 to 8 nuclear weapons. Reviewing Fleitz’s data, Ollie Heinonen, previously an IAEA official who now teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School, maintained that Iran could produce a “higher number” of weapons—perhaps as many as 11—from the enriched uranium it has accumulated since 2009.

On Tuesday, February 24, 2015, the Iranian opposition group the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) claimed that a complex, dubbed Lavizan-3, on the outskirts of Tehran, was “buried deep underground in tunnels and underground facilities” with “radiation-proof doors” to prevent any leaks that could be detected by the United Nations International Energy Agency inspectors. The NCRI claimed it smuggled out a photograph demonstrating a 1-foot thick lead-lined door which shields the complex from radiation, alleging further that the clandestine rooms and hallways are insulated for sound and radiation leaks so that they would remain undetected. The NCRI also maintained that the Iranian regime has secretly used the site to enrich uranium with advanced centrifuges since 2008, consistent with a long established deceptive pattern of hiding its actual nuclear activities.

The presence of Iranian command posts and special forces in the Golan Heights now extends beyond Iran’s pattern of supporting proxy activities (i.e., by Hezbollah). Per May 2014 statements by Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) senior official Hossein Hamedani that were censored and removed immediately after publication in Iran, the command posts are designed to coordinate “130,000 trained Iranian Basij fighters waiting to enter Syria.” A February 13, 2015 essay in the Lebanese publication Al-Akhbar by Nahed Al-Hattar noted, appositely, that while Israel’s nuclear weapons capabilities were constrained due to international considerations, Iran has amassed a “practical, direct and conventional” threat against the Jewish State: “Israel faces a fateful crisis. As much as it feared the Iranian nuclear program, it never imagined that Iran would be standing on its border even before its nuclear agreement with the Americans was complete. The Iranian threat to Israel is no longer theoretical, nor does it have anything to do with Israel’s deterrent of using its nuclear weapons, which cannot be used considering the international power balance. The threat has become direct, practical and conventional.”

Iran’s Fars News Agency reported February 25, 2015 that at a simulated “life size” U.S. aircraft carrier was destroyed by IRGC missiles during the IRGC Navy’s massive “The Great Prophet 9” war games in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. In a Sunday 3/1/15 follow-up statement, Iranian legislators lauded the IRGC’s naval war games: “Using the hi-tech weapons and complicated and high-precision missiles in these military drills was a clear message to the world that sanctions can never prevent Iranians’ access to the most advanced and state-of-the-art weapons.”

On February 11, 2015, during events marking the 36th anniversary of the 1979 “revolution,” the theocratic putsch’s virulently anti-American and anti-Israeli character was re-affirmed. Prominent displays of hatred toward President Obama, shown hanging from a gallows, and Secretary of State Kerry, depicted as a devious fox, were featured. And at a February 11, 2015 address in Kermanshah, Basij commander Mohammad Reza Naqdi declared: “The Iranian people calls in unison the slogans ‘death to America’ and ‘death to Israel’.America and Israel will end up like the rest. The Iranian nation’s unity will cause the elimination of these arrogant [countries]…The 5+1 coalition [the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany – who are conducting nuclear negotiations with Iran] is a coalition against humanity and against Islam. The enemies always fear Islam and the progress of the Iranian nation…”

Finally, a domino display held in the city of Gonabad, in the Razavi Korasan Province of Iran, February 16, 2015, riveted upon Iran’s nuclear program. Structures made of dominoes simulating obstacles to the Iranian nuclear program—sanctions, the Stuxnet virus, the assassination of scientists—were toppled, being replaced by messages proclaiming Iran’s nuclear accomplishments. Some of the US-related models featured, such as the word “CIA,” the RQ-170 drone, and the US flag, were collapsed. The show concluded with a missile destroying a domino structure of an Israeli flag.

What animates Iran’s relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons capability, a quest initiated under the combined leadership of Mir Hossein Mousavi (now a “Green Movement” leader), and Ayatollah Khomeini himself, between 1987 to 1988? Though almost universally ignored, or willfully obfuscated and trivialized, Iran’s central abiding motivations are pellucid. Brazenly articulated by its foundational ideologues and governmental decrees, repeated in countless religio-political pronouncements over the intervening 36-years since the retrograde Khomeini “revolution” of 1979, the three pillars of Iran’s hegemonic aspirations remain jihad, canonical Islamic Jew-hatred, and the uniquely dehumanizing Shiite Islamic conception of “najis,” “impurity/uncleanliness,” as it pertains to non-Muslims (which I will elaborate).

During the extensive interview, which you can skip to here, we had a chance to ask him a series of questions on the nature of Islam, its goals, tactics, how Western Muslims become jihadists, and all manner of other topics.

But it was in response to a question on whether there is such a thing as moderate Islam that Mr. Akbari, a man who studied at the seat of Shia religious learning at the Tehran University School of Law, and specialized in criminal and family law before leaving Iran, gave perhaps his most stunning response of all, stating:

What Erdogan, the Prime Minister of Turkey says is actually perfect and totally Islamic because Islamis Islam. We don’t have such a thing like — “radical Islam extremism” — many things that are said in Islam like beheading, like stoning, like flogging — they are not extremism acts, those are pure Islam.

…The second thing is, this is not “extremism,” this is “fundamentalism.” People who believe in [the] Koran understand it and practice it and take it serious.

About moderate Muslims, we have to…make a distinction between those people who come from Islamic backgrounds, come from [the] Middle East, their names are ‘Mohammed’…they might not believe in [the] Koran at all. They might just be atheists. They just come from that region.

Who are moderate Muslims in reality according to Akbari?

…Moderate Muslims actually are kind of like CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations] people — people who are Muslim Brotherhood types…and these people fight for Islam, love it, but they give a peaceful feature, and good-looking [nature] to Islam, to…deceive Americans not to resist the process of Islam.

Sometimes they deceive Americans this way that “We are the same as your neighbor who is from the Middle East.” That neighbor might be an atheist, might be a Buddhist at heart. Just by nature and feature, people might assume [him or her] Islamic.

…Moderate Muslims, as we might know as Muslim Brotherhood, they are the backbone of jihad.

Without them, there…[are] not gonna be any jihadis. They support jihad financially. They recruit here for jihadists — they recruit in this country. They have their own Islamic centers. They go to jail and recruit for ISIS.

So without these moderate Muslims — I’m not talking about just people coming from [the] Middle East — I’m talking about those who fight for Islam, or those who love Islam and pay for jihadists and also support to…try to recruit people, or sympathizers. My point about moderates is kind of different than what Americans might say.

Moderates are not anybody from [the] Middle East with an Islamic name.

My point about moderates are people who have Islamic organizations in an organized way, fight to improve Islam, I call those people moderates. To my eyes, those moderates are no different than ISIS or other jihadists.

During the interview, we also had the opportunity to discuss a series of other topics with Mr. Akbari including:

As the Obama administration continues to live in their fantasy world of the Islamic State (IS) being “defeated” by the “Coalition of the Reluctantly Willing” and a ill-conceived Twitter campaign, IS has been busy replenishing its ranks. They’ve been doing this and weakening their enemies by recruiting defectors from the other Syrian opposition factions (such as al-Nusra/Khorasan Group). A big driver for this is the directive Baghdadi put out for the terror organization to build local ties and form alliance in advance of future operations. One such example of al-Nusra/KG losing people to the other side is increased IS presence along the Lebanese-Syrian border. Other reports coming in describe entire opposition units in Halab, Hama, Homs, Idlib and dawr al-Zawr. The reasons for this are obvious:

– The other factions view IS as being the strongest faction in the regional war that will ultimately “crush” all opposition and the best chance to seriously challenge the Asad regime. In other words, everybody wants to be part of a “winner.”

Indeed, IS – or anybody for that matter – will enjoy a huge surge in recruitment when they’re doing well on the battlefield, which gets amplified by an effective IO campaign. This is also a great gauge to see how well the Obama administration’s IS strategy has been working out thus far. So how are they doing? Well for starters we’re hearing that the Gaza-based Mujahidin Shura Council (MSC) has pretty much been “disbanded” and absorbed into IS’ North African affiliates such as the Egypt-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM). The MSC had been working to become a legitimate al-Qaida affiliate and had formed in 2012 (some reports will say as early as 2011) when three Gaza-based Salafi groups merged in response to guidance received from the al-Qaida (AQ) senior leadership. The MSC was very similar to the MSC that was set up in Iraq prior to the formation of the “Islamic State of Iraq” now known simply as the “Islamic State” (Long War Journal did a great piece on this in 2012 that remains applicable to the current situation).

Although primarily based in Gaza, the organization also had a presence in Egypt’s Sinai region and Libya. However, the effort fell through due to unknown reasons, but it may have to do with internal problems the entity had. In fact, by NOV 14 we had began to see elements of the MSC’s branch in Sinai had already defected to ABM. The terror group also made in-roads elsewhere by forming an alliance with its splinter group Ajnad Masr for increased joint-operations in the Cairo-area as discussed in our piece titled “Haftar-Sisi Alliance: The Roadblock to ISIS Bridge Into the Maghreb.” We assess that the addition of MSC personnel into ABM’s ranks will bolster the Sinai group’s capabilities with knowledge of alternative smuggling routes at the local-level coming into play to avoid the Sisi regime’s crackdown on IS affiliates.

The act of absorbing one’s enemies is not a new phenomenon and is actually part of the long history of the Islamic religion itself. As we’ve seen throughout the Middle East’s extremely violent history of conquest after conquest, the 21st regrettably isn’t any different. ABM itself formed in 2011 as a by-product of the so-called “Arab Spring” that the Obama administration supported that led to installing the Muslim Brotherhood as the new regime in Egypt. The terror group mainly targeted the Jewish population in the Sinai and throughout Israel itself, although this all changed when GEN Sisi came to power and began systematically targeting all jihadist elements in the country that was allowed to flourish under the Morsi regime. Since aligning itself with IS, the group has adopted some – but not all – of Baghdadi’s ideology. The act of beheading enemies (especially those deemed to be “traitors”) is now a recurring theme for the organization after pledging allegiance to Baghdadi’s “Caliphate.”

ABM: The ISIS Cancer spreading throughout the body of North Africa and GazaSource: al-Arabiya

As of this writing ABM has been focused on expanding IS’ influence in Gaza, the Sinai and Libya in order to secure smuggling routes that are supporting the overall effort in Syria against the Assad regime. Central to this is ABM’s Sinai campaign to secure the gateway to Gaza and by extension Syria – the increased presence along the Lebanese-Syrian border is part of this greater strategic vision the senior IS leadership has for the region. A great deal of weapons and foreign fighters coming from Tunisia and Libya are going through Egypt, Gaza and Northern Lebanon to get to Syria (both straight into Syria or through Turkey). Of the Libyan weapons being sent to facilitate the anti-Assad war effort, the majority of them are coming from weapons depots in Misrata and Benghazi. On 29 AUG 14 we stated in “The Strategic Importance of Egypt to ISIS” that the terror group had not yet firmly entrenched itself inside Egypt, but was getting close as the result of ABM aligning itself with Baghdadi. Today, we can say that ABM has made great strides since then despite being targeted by the Sisi regime – and they’re going to become a much greater threat with absorbing the MSC into its ranks.

Sisi regime declared “open season” for hunting down IS and its affiliatesSource: ISIS Study Group

Economic warfare against members of the “Coalition of the Reluctantly Willing” has also steadily increased in both Egypt and Libya, with oil pipelines being regular targets in IED attacks aiming to disrupt the economies of not just Egypt and Libya, but also that of Jordan and European nations such as Italy. Another reason is that they they can gain access to fuel sources to sell on the black market and supply their forces. This is indicative of the cross-border coordination one can expect from multiple groups that have united under a common umbrella – in this case the Black Flag of IS. Below are a few examples of alleged IEDs emplaced targeting Libyan oil pipeline between Sarir Field and Hergia Port that we received from our in-country sources:

Source: The ISIS Study Group

Source: The ISIS Study Group

The alliance between the Sisi regime and Libyan GEN Khalifah Haftar may have struck IS strongholds inside Libya, but the jihadist organization has answered back with a series of bombings targeting the joint-Egyptian/Haftar faction command center in Quba. They didn’t stop there – they also launched an attack against the Iranian embassy in Tripoli last week. The attack served two purposes:

– To target a major hub for coordinating IRGC-Qods Force and Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) intelligence operations in the country. The Iranian regime will typically coordinate intelligence operations inside of a target country from their embassies and consulates. In fact, cultural centers set up by Iranian diplomatic missions are staffed with MOIS and Qods Force personnel to provide cover.

– Sending a message to Iran and the West that IS has firmly entrenched itself inside Libya. The Iranian Ambassador was not present at the compound when it was attacked, suggesting the target was symbolic in nature.

In addition to being an avenue from which to target Western economies, Libya is also a potential launching pad for jihadists looking to travel to Europe under the guise of “refugees” to facilitate the execution of attacks on the continent. This will also affect the US due to the naive policy of the Obama administration to admit thousands of refugees from places like Libya, Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Refugees who obtain citizenship to a European nation will also be able to circumvent the largely nonexistent enforcement of US border security laws to enter the country under the guise of “tourists” or “students” – with DHS completely oblivious of their usage of this status to further a much more insidious agenda.

As 2014 was the year that put IS on “the map,” 2015 will be the year that we see greater expansion into North Africa going into Gaza and the border-area with Lebanon. This will also be the year that we will see IS begin reaching out “to touch” Europe and the US with attacks conducted by well-organized cells with extensive experience in Syria and Iraq as opposed to the home-grown jihadist cells we’ve seen in Denmark, French and Belgium attacks. It will also become painfully obvious to those still in denial that the Obama administration has a strong strategy against IS – which it doesn’t. In a time where the world needs a Churchill, Patton and Montgomery we’re getting it – its just coming from GEN Sisi, GEN Haftar, King Abdullah and Bibi Netanyahu instead of the US government. However, these great men have limits in what they can do. They will need much greater US military assistance – far greater than what’s currently being given. The Libyan people have been taking to the streets demanding that GEN Haftar take command of the Army as they view him as the best shot they have at eradicating the IS threat. We should be supporting GEN Haftar and GEN Sisi in their efforts. Considering the fact that the Obama administration still thinks IS fighters are just bored young men looking for jobs while downplaying the significance of Islamic fundamentalism.

Six individuals of Bosnian origin from St. Louis, Rockford, Illinois and Utica, New York, were indicted last month on charges of supplying money and equipment to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

And yet late last week it was revealed that one of those terror suspects, Nihad Rosic, who is also one of two suspects additionally charged with conspiring to kill and maim others in a foreign country and had attempted to board a plane back in July 2014 to fly to Syria to join ISIS, had actually been apprehended in the small town of Plainfield, Indiana, right outside Indianapolis.

A Bosnian national indicted on charges of funneling resources to terrorists overseas was arrested earlier this month in Plainfield, officials confirmed Friday, but it was unclear why the man was in Indiana.

U.S. marshals booked Nihad Rosic, 26, in the Marion County Jail on Feb. 6, jail records show, though his connections to the state appear to be minimal.

A federal indictment alleges that Rosic and five others communicated on social media with coded language to organize financial support and send equipment to terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq.

Jan Diltz, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri, where the indictment was handed up, said she doesn’t know why Rosic was in Indiana.

While at first glance it may seem odd that Plainfield, Indiana might be a haunt for an international terror operative for perhaps the most dangerous Islamic terrorist group in the world today, it perhaps might be more clear when considering that Plainfield is the headquarters the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), one of the most terror-tied Islamic organizations in American history.

As one former federal law enforcement official told me this weekend, if Rosic was not in Plainfield related to ISNA it would be an “extreme coincidence bordering on the unbelievable.”

ISNA’s ties to terrorism go back even before it’s founding in the early 1980s when the organization was operating in the Indianapolis area as an amalgam of Muslim Brotherhood front organizations, including the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), the Islamic Teaching Center (ITC) and the Muslim Student Association (MSA). I’ve previously reported on the MSA’s extensive terrorist lineup here at PJ Media.

Two of the visitors to the area in those early days included Al-Qaeda founder Abdullah Azzam and his protege, Osama bin Laden.

According to a book published by Bin Laden’s first wife, Najwa, the Al-Qaeda leaders and the Bin Laden family visited the U.S. for two weeks in 1979 with stops in Los Angeles, and yes, Indianapolis. A clue why Bin Laden and Azzam might have been in the area might be an ITC newsletter dated February 1978 I uncovered that documents a previous visit to their Indianapolis offices in January of that year by Azzam and several other well known extremist Islamic clerics. ITC now operates as a subsidiary of ISNA.

From its earliest days ISNA was a hub for international Islamic terrorists. Terrorist figures associated with ISNA include:

Al-Qaeda financier Abdurahman Alamoudi, who started ISNA’s political action committee in November 1988, who was convicted in 2004 for his role in an international assassination plot targeting then-Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. In 2005, the US Treasury Department admitted that Alamoudi had operated as one of the top Al-Qaeda fundraisers in North America.

Senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian, one of ISNA’s self-admitted founders, was convicted in 2006 for his role in supporting the terrorist organization and was deported from the U.S. last month. Prior to his indictment, Al-Arian was deeply involved in numerous ISNA activities and organizations, and was a regular speaker at the ISNA annual conferences.

Pakistani intelligence agent Ghulam Nabi Fai, who not only worked for ISNA but also served for years on ISNA’s shura council, was convicted in 2012 for failing to disclose nearly $4 million he had received from the Pakistani ISI intelligence service to influence members of Congress on behalf of the Muslim separatist cause in Kashmir (I reported on Fai’s operation in a two-partseries here at PJ Media, noting that Fai spoke at ISNA’s annual convention two weeks before his arrest). Fai’s co-conspirator, Zaheer Ahmad, reportedly met with both Bin Laden and Zawahiri just weeks before 9/11 to discuss their weapons of mass destruction program. As reported in an in-depth ProPublica expose of Fai’s activites, not only was Fai working for Pakistani intelligence at the same time he was working for ISNA, but key ISNA figures and affiliates helped start his Kashmir American Center.

One other senior terror leader with deep ties to ISNA is current Hamas deputy head Mousa Abu Marzook. I’ll elaborate on the ISNA/Hamas ties below, but will note here that when Marzook was arrested in the U.S. in 1995 and designated a global terrorist by the Clinton administration, and was later deported in 1997, Marzook took out an advertisement in the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs thanking his supporters, including ISNA:

In October 2014, Mohammed Hamzah Khan was arrested trying to board a flight to travel to Turkey to join ISIS. According to postings on Khan’s Instagram account, he had attended ISNA’s annual convention held in Detroit less than a month before.

But ISNA’s role in the international Islamic terror network isn’t just associational. Rather, they have taken a much direct role in supporting international terrorism.

According to forms filed with the IRS, ISNA provided $170,000 in start-up funds for the Islamic African Relief Association (IARA), which was designated a global terrorist organization by the U.S. Treasury in October 2004 for supporting Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas, and other Islamic terrorist organizations. Exhibits entered into trial evidence in court by federal prosecutors showed extensive payments from ISNA to IARA over the years in increments of tens of thousands of dollars. According to the Justice Department, IARA sent at least $130,000 to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Another ISNA-supported Islamic terror charity was the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA). As reported by Thomas Jocelyn at the Weekly Standard, German investigators found transactions between ISNA and TWRA in 1992 at the same time that TWRA was financing the US-based terror cell that conducted the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the planned “Day of Terror” attacks targeting New York City landmarks.

Despite evidence of ISNA’s support of a long list of Islamic charities tagged by the US government and the United Nations as terrorist organizations, ISNA’s most notorious role in supporting international terrorism came up in the largest terrorism financing trial in American history in the successful prosecution of the executives of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) for supporting Hamas.

Not only did HLF receive ISNA’s longtime support, but it began as the Occupied Land Fund as an arm of ISNA operated out of the group’s Plainfield headquarters.

So intertwined was ISNA in conspiracy by the international Muslim Brotherhood to finance Hamas, in one court filing federal prosecutors lay out ISNA’s role in providing “media, money and men” to Hamas (page 13 in the file):

ISNA’s terror support was even profiled by Indianapolis NBC affiliate WTHR in a 2003 two-part series entitled “Images in Conflict“:

But if it is the case that ISIS operative Nihad Rosic was in Plainfield meeting with ISNA officials it is highly unlikely that the Justice Department would ever admit to it since ISNA has been the closest Islamic group to the Obama White House.

That’s right, despite what federal prosecutors have said in federal court about ISNA’s role in supporting international terrorism, its ties to convicted terror leaders and supporting designated global terrorist organizations, and even Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez under the Bush administration cancelling meetings because of the presence of ISNA officials, as I noted here at PJ Media in the early days of this administration, ISNA has been openly embraced by the Obama White House.

So what is the connection between Nihad Rosic and ISNA, and why exactly was he arrested in Plainfield, Indiana? Most likely federal authorities will never say, but an educated guess about the possible involvement of ISNA given their lengthy track record on these types of activities is hardly out-of-order.

In that second post, we copied verbatim the Task Force on New Americans instructions for getting on the call. Note that they wanted to keep whatever was said from the press:

“Note to the media: This engagement is not for press purposes.”

After hearing Sue’s description of what she heard, it is no wonder they didn’t want the press to know what was being said!

You can listen to Sue’s report to Levin by going to the Podcast of Levin’s February 26th show. Go here and find the February 26th show. Start listening at 91:12 (on my version of the podcast).

***Update*** Reader Caroline sent us this link to WCBM (Baltimore) where Sue is identified as Sue Payne co-host of the Pat McDonough Radio Show.

Everything she says rings true with what we have been hearing and reporting for the last couple of years! But, it wasn’t until now that it all becomes clear!

Let’s start with ‘Welcoming America’ a community organizing group headed by David Lubell that sprang from a seed in Nashville, TN and was watered initially with funding from a George Soros group. We told you about them here.

In June 2013, it was the first time we heard this ‘seeds and soil’ concept that Sue reported to Mark Levin. In the “emergent” immigrant communities, the new immigrants (newly amnestied and refugees) are the “seedlings” and your town is the soil.

Will the “seedlings” ultimately take over the host?

At that June 2013 Office of Refugee Resettlement“stakeholder” meeting in Lancaster, PA, we learned for the first time that the federal government had contracted ‘Welcoming America’ to get peoples’ minds right especially in areas where“pockets of resistance”(their words!) had formed.

Here is what I said about that presentation by ‘Welcoming America’ in June 2013:

“Welcoming America is on the case! They want to “transform” communities by “Building a Nation of Neighbors”!

Downs-Karkos described her organization’s job as “promoting understanding and support for refugees.” The whole concept is that YOU must improve your attitude to your new neighbors, not that the refugees must learn to fit into American society. We are a Nation of immigrants, they are coming, so get used to it was the basic message.

The refugees and immigrants are the seeds and your community is the soil into which they are being planted is how she described what is happening. Her group is working on improving the soil.”

We have been chronicling ‘Welcoming America’ and David Lubell’s activities for nearly two years, click here for our complete archive. See especially that when Obama recently visited Nashville, community organizer Lubell was invited on Air Force One.

Go here to see if your city/county is working with Welcoming America! See which states have “Welcoming Affiliates” here.

Changing the definition of “refugee”

Obama and his cabal of Open Borders agitators are working to further blur definitions involving categories of legal immigration (eg refugees) and illegal aliens something that is already very confusing to the average American and often the media as well.

Besides the ‘seedling and the soil’ imagery, Sue reported that the task force seeking to change America wants to transform all of the newly amnestied aliens into “refugees.”

That is an integral part of the plan which we have been saying is the real goal behind the ‘unaccompanied alien children’ invasion of the border—Obama, Munoz, Lubell and the gang want them all designated as refugees! Why? Because refugees have all forms of welfare (including health care) available to them while other classes of immigrants (both legal and illegal do not) and they are on a fast track to citizenship.

That is the point (the refugee definition change) we were trying to make on Fox & Friends earlier this month, here. Refugees are legally defined as being outside their own country and must prove that they fear returning home because they are persecuted for race, religion or political persuasion. Economic migrants are not refugees! The alien “children” are not refugees!

I wrapped up the interview with this line (notice I did not use the words “illegal immigration.”):

“I also think that immigration is our existential threat in this country, both [because of] the numbers and who we are bringing in.”

It is not just Obama!

Finally, remember this “seeding” concept has been going on for decades through Presidents of both parties as the US State Department and itscontractors (all nine are progressive, six of them represent the “religious Left”) have been seeding communities with refugees — see our post just this weekabout how over 60 towns in Minnesota have been “salted” (I should have said “seeded!”) with Somalis. Obama is just taking it to a new level.

By the way, I will bet the contractors***were on that Task Force on New Americansconference call too!

Speaking of language—you are a racist if you don’t want to be replaced!

Again, they control the language: If you aren’t “welcoming” then that means to them you are unwelcoming=racist, redneck, xenophobic, nativist boob. Such language sends most good people running for cover. Or, in the case of politicians, especially Republican ones, they virtually wet their pants out of fear while Obama and the progressives move forward with their agenda of replacing you!

*** I wonder do the refugee resettlement contractors care about legitimate refugees as they sell-out to the Open Borders movement by supporting amnesty for millions?

This past Tuesday, Cliff Kincaid held his National Press Club conference, America’s Enemies in Hollywood Then and Now. Cliff’s guests included Allan Ryskind, long-time editor of Human Events; Lawyer, author, and 9-11 survivor Deborah Weiss, who describes the breadth of CAIR’s malevolent machinations, including influence operations in Hollywood; and Trevor Loudon, the intrepid researcher from New Zealand who has exposed much of what we know today about Obama’s radicalism.

For those unaware, CAIR is a spawn of the Islamic Association of Palestine and HAMAS, both state designated terrorist organizations. CAIR is also an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holyland Foundation trial, the largest trial of its kind ever prosecuted against Islamic terror-supporting organization in the U.S. According to Weiss, CAIR had a hand in making fundamental changes to many prominent movie scripts, including:

The Sum of All Fears. A nuclear bomb is detonated in Baltimore, destroying the city. In the original storyline, Muslim terrorists are the bad guy. CAIR got the script changed to point the finger at Australian neo-Nazis. The movie starred Islam apologist Ben Affleck.

True Lies. Produced by 20th Century Fox about Islamic terrorist with spy who had unfaithful wife. Producer agreed to include disclaimer that the movie was a work of fiction and was not intended to malign any religion.

Syriana. The movie starring George Clooney (who also produced the film in an Oscar-winning role, blames us foreign policy for conduct of Islamic terrorists. In the end Clooney is killed by a predator drown, along with a progressive Arabian prince whose work is threatening American oil interests.

The UN Alliance of Civilization created a fund that ran between 2008 and 2009 that was supposed to combat Muslim stereotypes. Hollywood backed the fund.

Weiss says that CAIR NY is one of the most extreme branches and attempted to reshape CBS’s broadcast content, claiming that the network aired shows describing Islamic terrorism. In June 2001, CAIR NY initiated an online petition to boycott all CBS TV and radio shows and advertisers and sought to block the network’s broadcasts into the 54 Organization of Islamic Conference countries and the Palestinian Territories. The petition was scrubbed following 9-11, but remained online at other sites nonetheless.

Weiss states that the Islamist propagandists push Hollywood elites to promote messages denigrating Christianity, and rewrite history to mask Islamist influence. They use lawsuits, infiltration, and disinformation, exactly like the organized Left. Weiss calls it a war of ideas and concluded her remarks by challenging the audience to fight for classical liberal ideas. She said it was essential to discuss Islamic terrorism. The media plays major role in shaping world opinion and is not allowing an honest dialog. There needs to be a concerted pushback.

There are striking similarities between the objectives of Churchill’s speech nearly 75 years ago and Netanyahu’s today; both with no less purpose than to avert global conflagration. And, like Churchill’s in the 1930s, Netanyahu’s is the lone voice among world leaders today.

There is no doubt abut Iran’s intent. It has been described as a nuclear Auschwitz. Israel is not the only target of Iranian violence. Iran has long been making good on its promises to mobilize Islamic forces against the US, as well as the UK and other American allies. Attacks directed and supported by Iran have killed an estimated 1,100 American troops in Iraq in recent years. Iran provided direct support to Al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks.

Between 2010 and 2013, Iran either ordered or allowed at least three major terrorist plots against the US and Europe to be planned from its soil. Fortunately, all were foiled.

Iran’s ballistic missile program, inexplicably outside the scope of current P5+1 negotiations, brings Europe into Iran’s range, and future development will extend Tehran’s reach to the US.

It is not yet too late to prevent Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons. In his 1941 speech to Congress, Churchill reminded the American people that five or six years previously it would have been easy to prevent Germany from rearming without bloodshed. But by then it was too late.

This vengeful and volatile regime must not in any circumstances be allowed to gain a nuclear weapons capability, whatever the P5+1 states might consider the short-term economic, political or strategic benefits to themselves of a deal with Tehran.

In a few days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address the US Congress for the third time. The only other foreign leader to have had that privilege was Winston Churchill. Like Churchill when he first spoke to Congress in December 1941, Netanyahu is taking a risk.

For Churchill the risk was to his life — he had to make a hazardous transatlantic voyage aboard the battleship HMS Duke of York through stormy, U-boat infested waters. For Netanyahu the risk is to his own political life and to his country’s relationship with the United States, given the intense presidential opposition to his speech.

But like Churchill was, Netanyahu is a fighting soldier and, like Churchill, a tough political leader, unafraid to shoulder such risks when so much is at stake. And in both cases, the stakes could not be higher, greater than their own lives, political fortunes or rivalries and affecting not just their own countries and the United States, but the whole of the world.

There are striking similarities between the objectives of Churchill’s speech nearly 75 years ago and Netanyahu’s today: both with no less a purpose than to avert global conflagration.

Speaking days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Churchill summarized the course of the war thus far but then concluded with a dramatic appeal to the American people for Anglo-American unity to prevent conflict in the future, reminding them that “twice in a single generation, the catastrophe of world war has fallen upon us.”

“Do we not owe it to ourselves, to our children, and to mankind,” he asked, “to make sure that these catastrophes do not engulf us for the third time?”

No less profound, and no less far-reaching, will be Netanyahu’s appeal for American-Israeli unity in the face of a new danger. A danger perhaps even greater than Churchill was able to comprehend in pre-nuclear 1941. Whereas Churchill spoke of a future, as yet unknown peril, Netanyahu will focus on the clear and present threat to world peace if Iran is allowed to produce nuclear weapons.

And like Churchill in the 1930s, Netanyahu’s is a lone voice among world leaders today.

This Blaze TV episode of “For the Record” aired February 19, 2014 and is largely based on the research of Ryan Mauro of the Clarion Project. It exposes the network of Muslims of the Americas, a branch of the Pakistani group Jamaat ul-Fuqra, across the U.S. It is headquartered at “Islamberg,” New York.

Read about Mauro’s identification of an ul-Fuqra jihadist enclave in Texas: